Fleet of the Damned (15 page)

Sten desperately tried to push her upright and away—doing his best, but failing, to keep from touching places he ought not to touch. Visions of firing squads danced in his head.

"Was'a matter?" Brijit protested. "Din't ya ever see a girl get a tiddle little, I mean a little tiddly, before?"

"Please, Ms. van Doorman…" Sten fumbled.

She collapsed against him; as Sten clutched at her, she slid out of his arms as if she were greased and tumbled to the lawn. She was suddenly stricken by a mixture of laughter and hiccups.

"Had a
hic
con—con—contest. Drinking con—
hic
—test. I won."

"So I see," Sten said.

"He didn't like it."

"Who's he?" Sten asked.

Brijit became very formal. "
He
is my fiancé. Old whatis-bod. Rey. Right, Rey Hall—uh, Halldor. My true true true love."

The firing squad disappeared from Sten's mind to be replaced by a small figure being keelhauled. The figure looked very much like Sten.

"Why don't I go get Rey?" Sten said.

"No, no, no. He's with Daddy. Daddy doesn't like me to drink either."

This was all just as clotting wonderful as it could get. At least that was what Sten thought until Brijit started to cry. Not nice, soft little ladylike sobs either, but a loud bawl. Sten saw several people peering curiously out the window.

"Let me take you home," Sten said.

She stopped crying immediately. She gave him a little conspiratorial look. "Right. Home. Then nobody will ever know."

"Absolutely," Sten said. "No one will know. Okay, up we go, now."

It took him a good five minutes to get her to her feet. But that didn't do much good, as she kept sagging toward the ground each time. Finally, Sten picked her up and carried back along the path and through the gates to his gravcar.

He had barely cleared the ground when she lapsed into total unconsciousness. Sten was about ready to explode. Of all the clotting little… Ah, what the hell. He'd find the way. He punched her name into the gravcar's directory, found her address, and set the autopilot.

As they swept through the city, he took a good look at her. Except for a slight flush in her features and a bruised look about her mouth, no one could tell she had a load on.

What the hey, so she got a load on? Sten imagined that it wasn't very pleasant being related to van Doorman. So she wanted to kick her heels up a little? She had a right to, didn't she?

Asleep, Brijit seemed very peaceful, little-girl-innocent and… and… Get a hold of yourself, Sten. So she's a knockout. She's also the admiral's daughter, remember? Do not think those thoughts. Do not think them at all.

Brijit never woke up when they reached her house, and Sten had to carry her in and tuck her into bed. He palmed a switch to turn off the lights, sighed, and let himself out.

He found a furious blond man waiting for him at his gravsled. The man was in uniform and wore the insignia of a commander. The last time Sten had seen him had been outside van Doorman's office—he'd been wearing shorts and accompanying Brijit. It did not require much of Sten's deductive powers to figure out who the man was.

"So, there you are, you clot! I'll teach you to—"

The man swung at Sten, starting at his knees and coming straight up. Sten stepped back lightly, and the man almost fell from the force of the swing.

"You must be Rey Halldor," Sten said. "Brijit's fiancé."

"You're clotting right I am," Halldor said, swinging again.

Sten ducked, holding out both hands, trying to make peace. "Listen, Halldor. I didn't have anything to do with it. She got drunk. I found her. I took her home. Period. That's it. Nothing else happened."

Halldor charged, windmilling. Sten tried to dance aside, but one of the blows caught his ear. It hurt like hell.

"Okay, you clot," Sten said.

One arm stiffened. A hand connected, and the man found himself lying on his back, looking foolishly up at Sten.

"You… you hit me," said an astonished Halldor.

"You're clottin' right I hit you, Commander," Sten said. "And if you get up, that's not all I'll do."

"I want your name. Now, you clot."

"The clot you are speaking to is Commander Sten, at your service."

"This isn't the end of it," Halldor said.

"Right."

Sten vaulted into his gravcar. He almost broke the control panel punching in the code that would take him home.

I just love how you meet people, young Sten. Isn't it just wonderful how you got all the rough edges polished off on Prime World?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"H
ey, chief. I think I got something," Foss said.

Warrant Officer Kilgour, in spite of his years with the less-than-militarily-correct Mantis teams, was offended. "The term is Commander or Sten, son. And that is not the way to report."

Sten, amused, didn't bother to wait for Foss to rejargon. He was instantly across the
Gamble's
command deck—easily done, since it measured four meters on a side—and was staring at the screen.

"Well," he said, waiting for the ship's computer to give him a better analysis than a blip, sector, and proximity, "we have something. I guess it ain't birds."

Foss flushed.

Sten's flotilla was on its third week of shakedown. It had not been a thrill a minute.

Combine hardened felons with a naval background with policemen with no military background with eager volunteers with fairly virginal officers, then add to that four state-of-the-art patrolcraft. State of the art is correctly redefined by any engineer or technician with field service as: It will promise you everything and deliver you very little. Under stress or when you really need it, it will break. The Bulkeley-class tacships fulfilled these requirements very exactly.

Sten and Alex had managed twenty hours of sleep each since the
Gamble, Claggett, Kelly
, and
Richards
had launched from Cavite Base. The launch, intended to be a smooth soaring out of atmosphere, had been a limp toward space. The AM2 drive on Sh'aarl't's ship, the
Claggett
, had refused to kick in on command, and the formation had crawled into a holding orbit on Yukawa drive. It took hours of circuit running before they discovered that someone at the builder's yard had left his lunchtime tabloid—headline: "Emperor to Finally Wed? Escorts Beauty from Nirvana to Ball"—between two filter screens.

Sten's comment about birds was not a joke—the ship's screens had identified one of Cavite's moons as aquatic waterfowls, and the identification had been confirmed by the ship's
Jane's
. Still worse, the suggested response from the weapons computer had been bows and arrows. Of course, the professionally paranoid recruits from Cavite's police department saw signs of sabotage and Tahn sympathies among the builders. Sten knew better—over the years he'd learned that the more sophisticated a computer was, the more likely it was to independently develop what in humans would be called a sense of black humor. Foss had managed to find the glitch and recircuit it within a day.

Eric Foss was a rare find. If he hadn't been the initial source of recruitment from the police, Sten and Alex might have passed him over. He was a large, red-faced young man just barely old enough to join the military, much less the police. He'd spent his few short months on the Cavite force as a traffic officer.

Despite his bulk, the young man was so quiet, so calm, that he almost seemed asleep. But his test scores on communications of all kinds were awesome and not to be believed. Sten had personally tested him again—and the scores had improved. If Sten had been a superstitious man, he might have thought Foss a sensitive. But instead, he put him in charge of flotilla communications.

Shakedown had continued, always interesting in a morbid sort of way. The fire-system nozzles had been misaligned and filled the weapons compartments with foams; fuel-feed passages were warped; the galley stoves took a Ph.D. to understand, and the refreshers were worse.

On the other hand, all of the ships had power beyond the manufacturer's specs; target acquisition was superfast, and the missile-firing tests went flawlessly.

Unexpectedly, the crewmen and women managed to meld fairly painlessly. The only incident had been one of the ex-cons pulling a knife on an ex-policeman in an argument over the last piece of soyasteak. But the ex-cop had broken the man's arm in six places, snapped the knife in two, and told the officer of the watch that the other poor fellow must have tripped over something.

Even the command ranks were working into shape. Sh'aarl't, on the
Claggett
, was just as good as Sten had anticipated. Lamine Sekka, on the
Kelly
, was awesome, and Sten understood how the man's family had survived all those generations as warriors. Lieutenant Estill, backed by Ensign Tapia on the
Richards
, was coming along. He still had a tendency to follow slavishly on its anticipation every order, but Sten had hopes.

At least no one had fed himself into the power chamber, and no one had rammed anything. Both Sten and Alex, maintaining their public air of "not quite right, guys, try it again," were pleased.

But sleep was becoming an increasingly attractive future.

Seven more ship-days, Sten had promised himself. Then we are going to practice landing and concealment on the prettiest and most deserted world we can find and practice deep Zen breathing.

At that point, the contact alarm went off. The screen changed from a blip to a blur of words:

OBJECT IDENTIFIED AS NON-NATURAL. OBJECT IDENTIFIED AS AM2-POWERED SPACECRAFT. OBJECT ON PROJECTED ORBIT… (NONCOLLISION)… NO
JANE'S
ENTRY CONGRUENT WITH SHIP PROFILE… SHIP OUTPUTTING ON NO RECEIVABLE WAVELENGTH… SHIP
TENTATIVE… TENTATIVE
. . . OPERATING UNDER SILENT RUNNING CONDITIONS…

The words became an outline of the oncoming ship. Sten and Alex eyed the screen.

"Ugly clot, wha'e'er she be," Alex said.

"Almost as ugly as the
Cienfuegos
," Sten said, referring to a spy ship, camouflaged as a mining explorer, on which they had almost managed to get themselves killed during their Mantis days.

Alex got it. "Wee Foss, gie her a buzz on the distress freak."

Before Foss could key the frequency, the screen changed again:

ANALYSIS COMPLETE OF DRIVE EMISSION—DRIVE CODING SUGGESTS SHIP FROM TAHN WORLDS.

Sten keyed the mike. "Unknown ship…unknown ship… this is the Imperial Tactical Ship
Gamble
. You are operating in a closed sector. I repeat, you are operating in a closed sector. Prepare for inspection."

Without waiting for a response, he reached over Foss's shoulder and keyed the com to the "talk between ships" circuit. "
Clagett, Kelly, Richards
, this is
Gamble
. All ships, general quarters. All weapons systems on full readiness. All ships slave-link to my flight pattern. All commanders stand by for independent action. This may not be a drill. If fired on, return fire. I say again, this may not be a drill.
Gamble
out."

A speaker bleated. "Imperial Ship
Gamble
, this is the
Baka
. Do not understand your last, over."

There was another frequency change. "
Baka
, this is
Gamble
. I say again my last. Stand by for boarding and inspection."

"This is
Baka
. We wish to protest. We are a civilian exploration ship under correct charter. If there has been any error in our course, we will accept escort out of the restricted sector. We do not wish to be boarded."

"This is
Gamble
. We are warping parallel orbit. You will be boarded within… eight E-minutes. Any attempt to evade boarding or resistance will be met with the appropriate countermeasures. This is
Gamble
. Out."

Sten turned to Alex. "Mr. Kilgour. You… me… sidearms. Four men with willyguns. Move!"

Sten's crew may not have been fully trained as sailors, but they were fairly skilled at breaking and entering. Breaking was not necessary—the
Baka
had its lock extended and ready. The entrance slid open. Two men were on either side of the tube, willyguns held—not quite—leveled. The other two flanked Sten and Alex. They started down the tube, and their stomachs jumped a little as they crossed from their own artificial gravity field to that of the
Baka
.

The
Baka's
inner port opened.

Sten expected to be met with fuming and shouts. Instead there was quiet outrage.

The ship's CO introduced himself as Captain Deska. He was a man of control—but a man who was most angry. "Captain… Sten, this is totally unwarranted. I shall lodge a protest with my government immediately."

"On what grounds?" Sten asked mildly.

"We have been hijacked merely because we are Tahn. This is rank discrimination—my company has nothing to do with politics."

My company? A ship's captain working for someone would hardly have said "my." Sten decided that this Deska wasn't terribly good at fraud, "You are in a forbidden sector," he said.

"You are incorrect. We have the correct clearances and permission. In my cabin."

Sten smiled politely. He would be most interested in inspecting said clearances.

Deska led the way to his cabin. The ship corridors, unlike those of a normal exploration ship, were immaculate and freshly anodized. The crew members were also unusual—not the bearded loners and technicians that normally made up a long-cruise explorer but clean-shaven, cropped-haired, and wearing identical coveralls.

It did not take Sten long to peruse the clearances. He snapped the fiche off and stood up from the small console in Deska's Spartan quarters.